


we are always someone else

by CallMeBombshell



Series: this isn't where my heart is but it's something close to home [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bruce leaves, he tells Tony that he’ll come back, and he’s not even surprised to find that he means it. He’s leaving because he has to, because he has things left unfinished in a few corners of the world, things he needs to get and people he needs to see before he can return with a clear conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are always someone else

When Bruce leaves, he tells Tony that he’ll come back, and he’s not even surprised to find that he means it. He’s leaving because he has to, because he has things left unfinished in a few corners of the world, things he needs to get and people he needs to see before he can return with a clear conscience.

And Tony lets him go, just gives him that funny little half-smile he gets when he knows there’s more to the story than he’s been told but he isn’t going to push it. It’s refreshing, in a way, being able to tell someone where he’s going, having someone around who will let him go without a million questions, each more frantic and pointed than the next. It’s nice, too, knowing that he _can_ leave, and more to the point, that he can come _back_.

“Let me know if you need the jet,” Tony says, easy and flippant like it’s no big deal to just send a private jet to pick Bruce up from wherever in the world he might be at any moment.

And maybe for Tony is really is that easy. But that’s not the part that makes the offer so incredible. After all, this is Tony Stark; his outlandishly expensive gestures are practically to be expected. So it’s not the offer of the jet that trips Bruce up to think about it; it’s that the offer was made to _him_ , that Tony would go to such lengths and such expense just to make things a little easier for Bruce Banner, mad scientist and full-time keeper of the Hulk.

He feels, some days, like someone should have warned him about Tony Stark before they’d met.

Not because Tony’s a danger or an annoyance or something to be avoided or handled with caution the way so many people were clearly worried about. No, they should have warned him because Tony is a force of nature, because he’s a genius, because he’s insane, because he hasn’t been afraid of Bruce, not even a little, not from day one. They should have warned him because Tony’s gotten himself stuck in Bruce’s life like a particularly stubborn barnacle, and because the last time Bruce had a friend he was 15 and scrawny, pimply, nerdy and Derek Mills only hung out with him because Bruce would help him with his chemistry homework.

They should have warned Bruce about Tony Stark because even now, packing up his bags, he catches sight of Tony’s easy smile and hears the constant sound of his chattering like the sound of waves against the shore and Bruce realises suddenly that he’s going to _miss_ Tony, that he can’t just run and hide because Tony will eventually come and find him and drag him back with promises of shiny new lab equipment and fresh-cooked meals and laundry service, and, even more terrifyingly, _Bruce would let him._

It hits him like a sucker-punch to the chest, like a semi truck, like an earthquake, and nothing like the Other Guy at all and Bruce actually has to stop for a moment and just breathe.

Tony rambles on, oblivious, leaning down to peer at something in the wiring of the, well, Bruce isn’t actually sure what it is, but it might be a toaster or it might be a miniature ground-to-air missile. He’s waving a soldering iron around absently in one hand while the other prods at a weld joint and Bruce has no idea what he’s talking about but the sight is so quintessentially Tony that Bruce can’t help but smile.

 

 

India is much as Bruce remembers it: hot, sticky air, throngs of people everywhere, the smells of spices and mint everywhere. He walks down a crowded street, shirt sticking to his back with sweat one moment and peeling away with the breeze the next. He wears a hat, a light, straw thing he’d found in the market that reminded him of one he’d had in Panama; it doesn’t fit with the local fashions, but there are enough tourists wearing all sorts of things that Bruce isn’t worried that it’ll attract attention.

The building he’s looking for is nestled back off the street a ways, a small paved yard fronting on a deceptively small expanse of plastered wall with a simple wooden door. From the outside, it looks like it might be a lonely, overlooked back entrance to one of the showier shop fronts down the road, or perhaps an entrance to a locked alley behind the street. The simple sign hanging above the door is all that gives it away: धर्मशाला, a small hospital clinic where locals and travelers both could find free medical assistance. Bruce smiles up at the sign for a moment before ducking inside. He nods a greeting to the two women at the front desk, who wave, recognising him, and let him pass on into the back office.

Nabhi grins when she sees him, white teeth stark against her brown skin. She hugs him, strong despite the thinness of her arms, the deep lines at the corners of her eyes deepening. Bruce has always loved the old woman’s smile; it never fails to make her look like the young woman she once was.

“You have been gone too long, yes?” She says, giving him a look that would be reproving if she could force herself to frown at him.

“You go so suddenly and leave me to me patients all alone,” she scolds, shaking a finger at him, and he laughs.

Nabhi may run the free clinic with an iron fist and an ever-watchful eye, but she is hardly alone. There are scores of women, and not a few men, who staff the growing clinic. It’s why Bruce had agreed to help her in the first place; amongst the throngs of nurses and physicians and patients, both locals and foreigners, it was easy to blend in.

Or at least, it was until Agent Romanov and SHIELD showed up and lured him away to take him back to Fury and a cage meant to contain him even as they played at trusting him. But he’s not thinking about that now, not here, not with Nabhi smiling at him fondly like she understands.

“Had to go back to treating patients myself,” she says, trying to look stern, but the effect is ruined by the mirth in her eyes.

“You take too much pleasure in bossing people around,” Bruce retorts, grinning.

Nabhi laughs, throwing her head back. “This is true!”

Bruce chuckles along with her, smiling; Nabhi, he thinks, doesn’t believe in doing anything at all unless you can do it while laughing, and preferably while making fun of someone. She and Tony would probably get along famously, he thinks, and then promptly resolves never to let them meet.

“Are you staying?” she asks once she’s stopped laughing and instead fixes him with a shrewd look. “Saw some things on the tv,” she goes on, peering intently at him. “Monsters, they said, and demons, and that flying tin can the world does not shut up about.

“Might have seen you, too,” she says, smirking, and Bruce isn’t sure whether to laugh or weep, because, yeah, he’s sort of easy to spot, and who knows if anyone saw him, or if they just saw the Other Guy, and he’s been worried that someone, somewhere might connect the dots.

He’s not worried for himself, so much (at least, says a voice in the back of his head, you aren’t worried _anymore_ ), but there are people who could get hurt because of him, people like Nabhi and her workers, people who could find themselves in trouble simply for having known him.

_(he doesn’t think about Betty, even now, when it’s safer than it’s ever been because it will never be safe enough in his head to risk her any harm)_

But that’s never bothered Nabhi, who watched him smash his way, huge and hulking and green, into an abandoned factory; who followed him, with water and bandages and antiseptic cream and found him unconscious but unhurt, who called on two of her nurses to bring him back to the clinic until woke up; who looked at him after with no fear in her eyes and said, “You must be hungry, boy.”

She is the first person who ever looks at the Other Guy and sees only the man. Even Tony, with his fearlessness and his fascination, had seen them both, the scientist and the monster, and Bruce will never stop being in turns grateful and amazed that Tony had liked them both in the same instant. But Nabhi remains the only person who has only ever looked at him as Bruce Banner.

“I’m only here for a few days,” Bruce tells her, regretfully. “I just wanted to stop and check in on you, see how the clinic is doing.”

“It’s good, it’s good,” Nabhi says, head bobbing up and down like a bird. “We survive without you, you know,” she adds, eyebrows rising.

Bruce chuckles and looks away. “I know you do, Nabhi. I just wanted to be sure.”

Nabhi waves a dismissive hand at him. “Enough about me,” she says, a tab impatiently. “Tell me about you.”

Bruce ducks his head, uncertain where to begin. “I’ve got a friend,” he says eventually. “He’s letting me stay with him. He’s brilliant, a genius, and he’s got this lab set aside for me.”

Nabhi grins, impish. “This friend,” she says, sly, “he wouldn’t happen to have been on the tv, too, would he?”

Bruce shrugs, but he’s grinning, and Nabhi already knows anyway. “He might have been,” he says, casual. “Lots of stuff on tv, you never know.”

Nabhi gives him a Look, the kind that always makes him think that she already knows everything and only wants him to tell her so she knows which parts he’s leaving out. If she could ever be persuaded to leave the clinic, Bruce thinks she’d make an excellent spy.

“So,” she says, “you live with this friend. Is he good? Does he feed you? Make sure you sleep?”

Bruce thinks of Tony, hunched over his work table with a cold cup of coffee at one side, a stale, half-eaten sandwich at the other, the shadows under his eyes and the stubble on his face telling Bruce that he’s been down here for far longer than he should have been.

He thinks of Pepper, sweeping in and urging Tony upstairs and out of his workshop with sly, calculated moves clearly borne of long habit and several years of experience with herding a cranky, temperamental genius.

He thinks of JARVIS, helpfully alerting Tony that _it has been 12 hours since you last ate, sir, and decreased metabolic processing has been known to lead to decreased productivity and mental processing power._

He thinks of Clint, who showed up only a week before Bruce left and who ghosts around the Tower unless he’s in the kitchen, and then the smells of curry or pasta or cooking meat fill the whole penthouse until Tony comes shuffling up the stairs, nose leading the way towards whatever culinary wonder Clint’s concocted this time.

“He’s not great at that,” Bruce admits, “but there are others around to make sure neither of us wastes away.”

“They’re not doing enough,” Nabhi criticises, looking him up and down as though assessing his fitness at the market. “I will send you home with spices,” she decides, “and lamb and rice, and some of my recipes, because I know you will eat my chicken stew and you need more meat on your bones, boy.”

“That would be wonderful,” Bruce tells her, and he means it. Nabhi’s delicious meals had been the first home-cooked food he’d had in years, and he’d treasured every one of them. Clint will love them, Bruce thinks, the spices and the intricacies of the flavour, the smell alone enough to make any mouth water.

“You are happy there,” Nabhi says after a moment; it’s not a question. “They are good for you there, I think,” she says, fond. “You did not want to leave.”

Bruce looks away. “Not really, no.” He falls silent and Nabhi, uncharacteristically, lets him.

“I might not be back for a long time,” Bruce says finally.

There is another silence, and when he finally looks back, Nabhi is watching him with a smile, gentle and warm and so unlike her usual bright grins that he’s not quite sure what to do with the expression. She reaches out and places a hand on his knee, gripping gently.

“You are not running,” Nabhi says, sure, like she already knows even though he hasn’t told her. It’s Nabhi, though; he’s never been able to keep secrets from her.

“No,” Bruce says softly, smiling back at her. “I’m not.”

 

 

Bruce returns to New York on a Wednesday morning, glad of Tony’s jet setting him down on a private runway where he doesn’t have to worry about the uncomfortable press of dozens of people all jostling with their luggage, their slow, stuttered crawl towards the door of the plane. Instead, he gets an empty tarmac and a man handing him his bag and Happy waiting with a car to take him back to the Tower.

“Good trip?” Happy asks as Bruce settles into the back seat.

Bruce smiles and looks out the window. “Yeah,” he says. “It was.”

The drive back is easy, the traffic thinned (as much as it ever is in New York) after the early morning rush, and Happy knows all the best routes for avoiding holdups and gridlock, so Bruce is back at the Tower before his post-travel crash starts to hit him. In the elevator, he keys in his code for the penthouse and leans against the wall on the ride up, pondering the merits of eating first or napping.

His decision is made when he reaches the common level and hears Clint’s voice echoing slightly from around the corner as he sings absent-mindedly in the kitchen. Bruce follows the smell of ham and onions and finds Clint at the griddle, frying up an enormous omelette.

“You’re back,” he says without turning around, and Bruce smiles faintly as he sinks down onto one of the seats at the bar counter. Clint turns to give him a small smile in return before going back to prodding his omelette with a spatula.

“Tony mentioned you were getting back today,” Clint says as he expertly flips the omelette over in the pan. “Though knowing him, he’s probably forgotten what day it is. Anyway,” he says, turning to grab a couple of plates from a cabinet, “I figured you’d be probably be hungry.”

“Very,” Bruce agrees, and Clint grins, sliding the omelette off the griddle and cutting it into careful thirds. He slides one onto a plate and hands it to Bruce, who immediately dives into it. There’s chunks of ham in it, and onions, and something that’s probably bell pepper, and it’s delicious.

He’s halfway through with his portion before he slows down, looking up to find Clint leaning against the bar and watching him with a sort of bemused expression, eating his own third much more slowly and with apparent relish. Bruce flushes slightly, but he’d long ago given up on being embarrassed by his enthusiasm for food; too many long weeks of hardly eating at all will tend to do that to a man, he figures.

“No Pepper?” he asks between bites. Clint shakes his head.

“No,” he says, swallowing. “She’s in Malibu, inspecting a factory or something. But Tony should be up here any moment now, what with, you know. Food.”

As if on cue, Bruce hears Tony’s shuffling, tired steps towards the kitchen a moment before he comes into view, blinking, his hair all a mess and grease stains running the length of his ratty t-shirt.

“Oh, omelette, cool,” he mutters, padding over towards the counter where Clint’s left the remaining plate. Tony grabs it and the fork next to it and takes a large bite, turning back to lean against the counter beside the griddle. He looks half-asleep, but Bruce can tell the moment Tony wakes up enough to notice he’s there, because he grins, big and bright and cheerful.

“Oh hey,” he says, swaying forward so he’s leaning against the bar next to Clint. “You’re back!”

“Just got in,” Bruce tells him. “Thought I’d have to forage for food, but Clint was cooking.”

“Clint is a kitchen god,” Tony declares, waving his fork dangerously close to Clint (who ducks out of the way, raising his own fork as if to fend him off). “If SHIELD decides they don’t want him anymore, I’m hiring him to be my personal chef.”

“See if I ever cook for you again,” Clint grumbles, but Bruce can see the way the corners of his mouth are turned up.

“No seriously,” Tony goes on, apparently not put off at all. “He made me this thing, it was like heaven wrapped in hamburger wrapped in beans and cheese and corn and chili. It was amazing. Life altering. You have to try it.”

“Actually,” Bruce says, “I have some recipes for you to try, Clint. They’re from my friend,” he adds, and Clint looks up, apparently interested. “She sent me back with some spices, too,” Bruce tells him, and Clint grins.

“Maybe for dinner,” he says, and Tony, mouth full, nods his fervent approval of this idea.

“That sounds great,” Bruce agrees, smiling.

The finish the rest of their food in comfortable silence. Clint grabs their dirty plates back and loads them in the dishwasher and then departs with a wave and a small smile, probably off to inspect Tony’s ductwork or shoot things st pigeons like Bruce had caught him doing once.

Tony’s talking about something he’s doing in the lab, but Bruce is only catching about every third word, so it’s not making a whole lot of sense. Still, the sound is soothing, somehow, familiar in a way that so few things have been in Bruce’s life, so he’s content to just sit and listen to Tony’s rambling.

Finally it becomes clear to Tony that Bruce isn’t really listening, too tired and jetlagged to really be an active participant in the conversation, so Tony waves his hands and tells him to get some sleep, for God’s sake, you’re like a zombie, Banner, Jesus. It makes Bruce laugh, even as he shuffles off towards the hallway and his room with it’s nice soft mattress and fluffy pillows.

Tony stops him in the doorway with a hand on his shoulder. He’s smiling, a sort of soft thing, all genuine warmth and happiness.

“Welcome home,” he says.

And Bruce just smiles, because, yeah, _home_ sounds good.

**Author's Note:**

> The thing that Tony describes as "heaven wrapped in hamburger wrapped in beans and cheese and corn and chili" is an actual thing which a friend of mine makes and is called The Creation. 
> 
> It's made with ground beef, pinto beans, yellow corn, hominy, cheese, and a whole ton of chili powder, and is one of the most awesome comfort foods I've ever had. It ends up being a LOT of food, so it's exactly the sort of thing I imagine Clint cooking up when he needs to lure Tony out of the workshop with promises of lots of food. 
> 
> It may or may not show up again in later stories, as well, just because I like it, and it's a favourite with my group of friends, and I don't see why the Avengers would be any different :)


End file.
